ARLINGTON – Prairie Creek is aptly named.

A section that runs by a future housing development in Arlington is so overgrown with grass that it can’t even be seen.

This week, fifth-graders from nearby Pioneer Elementary School learned that isn’t the creek’s only problem.

If salmon are ever to spawn there, the creek’s temperature will have to come down, and a little less grime clouding the underwater view wouldn’t hurt, either.

“Fish trying to breathe in muddy water is like you trying to breathe in a room full of smoke,” said Cara Ianni, education coordinator for the Stilly-Snohomish Fisheries Enhancement Task Force.

It made students think.

“I wouldn’t want to live there if I was a salmon,” said Ryann Reece, 10.

Ryann and her classmates are taking part in the Stilly-Snohomish task force’s Restoration Education for Young Stewards program.

Later this school year, the kids will turn in their clipboards for shovels to plant trees around the creek – what will best keep its waters clear, cool and clean.

In the meantime, they’re adding to their vocabulary with words such as “turbidity” and “phosphates.”

The task force’s program is one of several environmental efforts across Snohomish County that get students out of class and into the field.

In all, staff with Snohomish County’s Watershed Education Program worked with more than 1,100 students on fish and water lessons last school year.

Nearly 300 of those students were part of the Stilly-Snohomish task force’s restoration program.

Pioneer Elementary School teacher Lori Adams points to the program as one reason the school’s science scores on the fifth-grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning are higher than the average.

Pioneer’s science scores went from 33 percent passing before the program to 63 percent this past spring.

“It’s hands on. There’s a tremendous amount of inquiry going on. Kids have to develop their own testable questions,” Adams said. And those are all skills tested by the science WASL.

Still, the program isn’t a guarantee.

Science scores on the WASL were relatively flat at other schools that went through the restoration program last year.

Teachers say there are other benefits to the projects.

In Everett, James Monroe Elementary School teacher Barney Peterson said the various watershed lessons she’s brought into her classroom give an option for “the wiggly ones.”

“Not everybody learns well sitting with their feet flat on the floor,” Peterson said.

Peterson’s students raise coho salmon in a tank in their classroom. Students test the water daily and make predictions about when the eggs will hatch, based on the temperature.

Students also have planted butterfly-friendly flowers and researched hummingbirds.

This week, Peterson’s students headed out to native growth areas in surrounding housing developments and took an inventory of plants. They’ll put what they find into a digital mapping system for the county.

In Snohomish, Machias Elementary School teacher Stephanie Chlebowski is in her fourth year working with the task force.

In past years, students were ferried to Jetty Island in Everett to remove invasive plants such as Scotch broom. This year, they will design an experiment to prevent those pesky plants from cropping up in the first place.

“They’re making a difference in their community,” Chlebowski said. “I think some of them have a hard time realizing they can make a difference because they’re ‘just a kid.’ “

Back in Arlington, a city worker talked to the Pioneer students about how his employer will donate the Douglas fir, Western red cedar, Scouler’s willow and other trees they will plant around Prairie Creek.

Community resources manager Bill Blake recalled planting trees as a sixth-grader at Eagle Creek Elementary School.

“It’s one of those things that’s going to be passed on from generation to generation,” he said.

Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@heraldnet.com.